


Like a Rock

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel and the Bees - Freeform, Crazy!Cas Features, Cute Kids, Dean Has Anger Issues, Dean's Top 13 Zepp Traxx Mixtape, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Flash Forward, Flashbacks, Fluff, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kid Fic, M/M, Meet-Cute, Some angst, Surprise Ending, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, rocks, some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: Like they’re nine years old again, Dean takes the object from Cas gingerly and starts to undo the ribbon. He can’t contain the gasp when he pops the top. “Oh my God,” he says, holding up the cassette tape—scribbled on it, Dean’s top 13 Zepp TRA XX. “This is the first mixtape I made you because—”“‘Zeppelin rules’,” Cas quotes, grinning up at Dean with those eyes, the ones that convey a current of love so vast and powerful, Dean couldn’t try riding the waves if he could. “They still do. Though, they come after you.”





	Like a Rock

**Author's Note:**

> Named after the infamous song by none other than Bob Seger. (;
> 
> So, *Victor Henriksen voice* hey guys... it's been a while. I know I usually try to post minimum once a week. As I said in my previous fic, I went to Vegascon and it was AHH-MAZING. (I unfortunately didn't get to witness my FAV COREY TAYLOR AND JENSEN JAM OUT but that's okay cos I probably would've shit myself, died, come back, and then shit myself again.) I met Gil for the first time and got squeezed really hard by Misha, and honestly, I loved the trip more than the actual con. Getting to spend time with one of my best friends Shalina is rare and so always appreciated. I can now say, thanks to her family, we've officially pulled a Winchester and road-tripped to seek out a thrill.
> 
> I also had a not-so-great thing happen to me right after that I had to take time to myself for, but if you're a regular (and if you're not: hi!!!), you know me: I'm always finding a way to bounce back into another fic. And, just something to remember for yourself too that Mishalecki helped me realize: You are loved and you are worthy of it, too. As long as you know that, you can get through almost anything.
> 
> That being said, I love all of you and to all a goodnight (at least it is here as I'm typing this). <3

Ever since Dean saw Cas in the nurse’s office looking like Ernie Terrell after a boxing match with a swarm of bees, shirtless and slathered in honey, he’s known him to be a weird, dorky little guy.

When Cas isn’t trying to lure bees with his body, he dissects his PB&J’s— _literally_ dissects it, like a lab experiment—and plays one-man Twister at recess. Some days, he ventures as far as the field beyond the playground, but only to collect rocks kicked through the fence. Then he mumbles excitedly to himself how _this_ one comes from a great big volcano that bubbled over and _that_ one comes from a bunch of other different rocks that got glued together like one of Dean’s many failed art projects.

Not that Dean follows him around. Dean’s the type of kid that keeps to himself too unless someone threatens him or his little brother—which, for a controversial last name like Winchester, is often, so he sees Cas in the nurse’s office regularly. And as for being out in the field, Dean likes to tune out to the sounds of Zeppelin blaring from his Walkman. He only hears Cas because he mumbles so loud.

One day, his _Houses of the Holy_ cassette craps out on him. Dean, having a short temper inherited no doubt from his father, hit the fast forward and rewind so many times until he yanks his headphones out and throws them into the grass. Cas cranes his head in Dean’s direction like he hears a pencil drop, and that makes Dean even more mad. “What?!”

Cas quickly opens and closes his mouth. “I just was wondering if you thought this looked light gray or dark gray,” Cas said, holding out the rock in question for Dean to see.

“Who do I look like, the editor for _Better Homes and Gardens?”_

“I… guess not.”

Dean clenches his teeth watching Cas turn back to the fence with a slight sag in his shoulders. “Wait.”

Cas turns around with blinking eyes.

That’s the first, but wouldn’t be the last time Dean notes their intense blue. “Let me see it.”

Cas hands the rock to Dean. Their fingers brush a little and instead of butterflies, Dean feels hundreds of thousands of caterpillar bristles tickling the lining of his stomach, sweeping away any annoyance he has.

“I, um… I’d say dark gray,” Dean confirms, coughing a little to dispel his “feelings”.

Cas’s lips reveal a smile the way a bee reveals its strips extending its wings. “A mafic!” he exclaims, turning to Dean with wide, excited eyes. “All I ever find around here are felsic rocks.”

“I’m more of a classic guy myself.”

Cas tilts his head. “I didn’t know the rock index was updated. What’s a classic rock?”

Dean’s mouth drops. “Buddy, you… no. We have to fix this.”

They became best friends from that point forward. Though they don’t share each other’s passions, they have a mutual appreciation for the happiness it brings to each of them, and even inspires them to open their minds to new things. Cas never develops a passion for the mixtapes Dean makes him, but he becomes intrigued with his Walkman. It isn’t until their freshman year of high school Dean’s able to save enough money from seasonal jobs around the neighborhood to buy him one for his birthday, and makes Cas a mixtape with the sounds of nature to go with it.

Cas practically throws himself at him and though making Cas happy is his aim with the gift, he can’t help feeling a tinge of sadness knowing they won’t be sharing headphones anymore. (At least not until 2001 when in-ear buds become a thing and Cas just happens to misplace his vintage ones when, really, Dean kidnaps them and hides them in his Chevy so Cas is forced to share a bud with him when they hang out.)

Dean even finds a newfound appreciation for nature. Whenever he feels the rage inside him start to bubble over like a witch’s cauldron, he storms off to the woods just beyond the local park and starts screaming. It’s like therapy, and for Dean, a seventeen-year-old alpha male, anything to avoid talk therapy or explicitly label _anything_ therapy is enough to keep him at bay.

That, and Cas. After all, Cas is the one that introduced him to a new perspective on what he thought was a purposeless and equally repetitious existence.

It takes him nearly twenty years, but Dean’s officially going to give his life a purpose tonight.

“Dean,” Cas says, pink fluster coating his cheeks, “you… where?!”

“Deanna.”

Cas’s mouth parts in horror, trading glances between Dean and the bee thong. It’s literally how it sounds: a crochet bee with a thin piece of yellow yarn to hold it up. Dean honestly doesn’t know whose eyes look more terrified: the bee’s or Cas’s: “You did _not_ ask your grandma to make this.”

“Nah, I found it on Etsy,” Dean concedes, earning a light shove from Cas under the tree. If he pushes Dean a little harder, he’ll land underneath the mistletoe and he’s totally okay with that. “You know I fully expect you to wear that, right?”

Cas holds up the garment by the string, “What?! This isn’t a _gag_ gift?”

“Why would it be a gag gift? You love bees!”

“I hate you so much right now.”

“Mmm, love you too,” Dean replies, drawing his grinning boyfriend in for a kiss under the mistletoe anyway. Cas kisses back, and just as he stretches his mouth to deepen the kiss, Dean pulls back. “So, my turn?”

Cas scoffs, “Oh my God, you’re like Cindy Lou Who’s evil twin sister!”

“Or I’m just Taylor Momsen,” Dean says, shrugging. “Which I’m totally cool with. She’s pretty badass.”

“Did you—‘Bon Jovi rocks on occasion’—just admit to being a _Pretty Reckless_ fan?”

“I listen to other things… sometimes…”

“Well, if I had known that,” Cas says, handing Dean his third gift. It’s in a small, unwrapped (save for the thin green ribbon around it) rectangular box.

Like they’re nine years old again, Dean takes the object from Cas gingerly and starts to undo the ribbon. He can’t contain the gasp when he pops the top. “Oh my God,” he says, holding up the cassette tape—scribbled on it, _Dean’s top 13 Zepp TRA XX._ “This is the first mixtape I made you because—”

“‘Zeppelin rules’,” Cas quotes, grinning up at Dean with _those_ eyes, the ones that convey a current of love so vast and powerful, Dean couldn’t try riding the waves if he could. “They still do. Though, they come after you.”

Dean kisses him stupid because that’s the way Cas makes him feel when he does sentimental things like this. He suddenly loses all sense of dialogue and social skills and reality in general, so he has to suffice kissing him. “Just open your last goddamn present, you asshole.”

Cas laughs and reaches for the box tucked between the bottom arms of the tree. It’s smaller than the box with the cassette tape, so Cas already has his suspicions because he knows it’s going to be something expensive and hates when people splurge on him.

But when he opens the box, his expression bears far from hatred. Dean takes the tears welling in his eyes as a sign to help him up. Cas watches Dean then touch the carpet again, this time with one knee bent towards him. “So, um… I hope you’re crying because you’re trying to figure out how to say _yes_ , because if not, this is gonna be really awkward for both of us.”

“Is… is this coal?” Cas asks amid tearfall. “On _Christmas?”_

“I know, it’s kinda weird because you haven’t been naughty… except, _you know,_ but you know,” Dean rushes, “I know you don’t have a bioclastic in your collection, and I figured…”

Cas sputters through a laugh as he shakily slips the ring on, “I… I love it. I love _you…_ and I totally just did your job for you.”

“I mean, as long as it’s a yes, I’m good,” Dean laughs too, albeit nervously.

“Yes. Completely and ridiculously yes.”

Dean doesn’t waste another second he could be smothering his fiancé in a hug.

Ever since Dean saw Cas in the nurse’s office looking like Ernie Terrell after a boxing match with a swarm of bees, shirtless and slathered in honey, he’s known him to be a weird, dorky little guy.

What he didn’t know at the time was that he was falling totally and irreversibly in love with him too.

**Author's Note:**

> So the bee thong is a real thing: https://goo.gl/images/vNgQZH


End file.
